Russia has developed new fire-and-forget versions of the Tula KBP Kornet-E (AT-14) anti-tank missile, writes Doug Richardson. According to former commander-in-chief of the Russian Ground Forces, General of the Army Nikolay Kormiltsev, these are third-generation variants of the missile.

In an interview given to the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda a few weeks before his resignation in late September, Gen Kormiltsev said that the new missiles can be equipped with "a thermal or radio-locating homing head", and could be used against enemy anti-tank missile systems.

Kornet had become a "powerful and efficient weapon" with many advantages over foreign equivalents, he suggested, and was "very simple to use".

In its basic form, the Kornet missile is fired from a tripod-mounted single-round firing post designated the 9P163-1. This includes a standard day sighting and guidance device, but can be fitted with a 1PN79-1 thermal-imaging night sight. A 9P163-2 firing post was developed for vehicle-mounted Kornet systems.

The 9P163-1 missile currently in service is fitted with a tandem high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead, while the 9M133F-1 carries a thermobaric warhead. Both are laser beam-riding missiles that use semi-automatic command to line-of-sight (SACLOS) guidance. The gunner has to keep his sight on the target until the missile impacts.

With the new third-generation system, the gunner is only required to aim the missile, then give the fire command once lock-on has been obtained.

The 'thermal' pattern of homing head will be a passive-homing seeker able to detect and home onto the infrared (IR) energy emitted by the target. This would make the third-generation Kornet the first Russian fire-and-forget anti-tank missile. There had been reports that an IR terminal-guidance seeker was developed for the command-guided 9M17 Skorpion (AT-2 'Swatter') but not put into service.

In Russian military terminology, the phrase 'radio-locating' is normally used to indicate radar. To be useful against tanks and other small tactical targets, an active-radar seeker would have to operate in the millimetric region.

In the early 1980s, Hughes developed alternative IR and millimetric-wave seekers for the 200 mm-diameter AGM-124 Wasp, while in the 1990s the UK fitted an active-radar millimetric seeker into the 178 mm-diameter Hellfire to create the MBDA Brimstone air-to-surface missile. Russia is known to have studied millimetric guidance systems for missiles, but cramming this technology into the 152 mm fuselage diameter of the Kornet-E would be a difficult undertaking for Russian industry.

Gen Kormiltsev gave no further details of the upgraded system and did not indicate if it was in service, or if it could be fired from upgraded versions of the current ground and vehicle-mounted firing posts.

Edit... please do not link to outside forums, a citation from a source like Jane's is good enough

In about 1987 they managed a MMW radar seeker for their top attack guided submunitions for Smerch that was also made avaliable for Grad and also air delivered bomb.In the early 1990s they developed a more sophisticated combined IR and MMW radar seeker so that it only attacked targets with an engine running rather than tanks that had been already destroyed some time ago.

Considering the Kornet is made by KBP, which is also developing the Hermes missile there is certainly good reason to think that they might adapt the terminal seeker for the Hermes to also be available to use on the Kornet.

The real problem of course is that you need your anti tank missiles to be relatively cheap so you can put them in service in huge numbers and you can buy lots of them so that you can afford to train with them.

Kornet is relatively cheap and at a max range of 5.5kms it has excellent range and performance.

If you need all weather capability in dust storms and snow storms they already have the Krisantema, which offers either laser beam riding or SARH or semi active radar homing. In other words the radar on the launch vehicle marks the target for the missile to home in on for the first missile and a second missile can be launched being guided by a laser the same as the Kornet. This means that any target can be engaged whether it is radar reflective or not. A MMW radar is not much use against a log bunker or aiming for a window in a building.The radar homing missile is not strictly fire and forget as the launcher has an autotracker that follows a moving target the operator can forget about tracking the target. Laser guided missiles need the operator to manually track the target as far as I know, though they might have a digital video auto tracker to do that too.

Fire and forget would be nice for the infantry man, but its cost means that it is really only practical for now with helo launched weapons like Hermes where the risk to the helo is rather greater than to that of the soldier.

Transfering the guidance from the Hermes (which has a calibre of about 210mm, compared with Kornets 152mm) shouldn't be too hard as Hermes is designed to operate at a much greater range (out to 20km in the helo model and 100km in a ground based model flying a ballistic profile).

The real problem is the extra cost in putting the seeker in the part that explodes rather than putting it in the launch platform to be used over and over.

If you look at their SAMs, they tend to have dumb commmand guided missiles that are relatively cheap with all the expensive stuff in the vehicles that launch the missiles.The Tunguska, the Pantsir, the Tor, the Palma, the Kashtan, the Sosna-R, all use small very fast slim missiles and all with the exception of TOR have a large booster rocket to get it up to speed for extra range. All use cheap missiles with command to line of sight or radar guided guidance.By putting the night and all weather sensors on the launch platform the platform becomes expensive (TOR for example has a fully 3D air search radar and phased array tracking and flight command radar that is very sophisticated) but the cost of the missiles are kept low so you can use lots of missiles without breaking the bank.

In an interview given to the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda a few weeks before his resignation in late September, Gen Kormiltsev said that the new missiles can be equipped with "a thermal or radio-locating homing head", and could be used against enemy anti-tank missile systems.

This suggests they might create a Kornet with terminal homing but keep producing the laser beam riding models as well.Against certain targets a fire and forget missile would be ideal, as suggested above against enemy anti tank missile forces that will be at long range.

Against a sophisticated enemy however who might have jamming equipment for use against optical and IR guided weapons the standard beam riding Kornet would be better and much cheaper.

Austin wrote:Do we have any confirmation or news from officially may be pictures as well that Kornet Fire and Forget does exist ? There are no news apart from Janes which confirm the existence of the project.

KBP has been developing fire-forget for the Hermes rocket artillery. Don't see any reason why you can't stick it on a Kornet. The date of the article is 2004, it was still just a concept back then, it still hasn't been put into field trials yet.

If it is for a specific role in the Russian Army then it may remain secret for years.

If it is a KBP initiative that they were developing and want to offer it to the Russian military then it would probably have been advertised by now because an export order would probably pay for the development of the system.

Items that go into Russian service but are not for export can remain secret for many years.

A good example would be the Vasilek automatic mortar, which has been in service for decades yet finding it for sale for export is actually quite hard.

Another example is the R-27P and R-27EP, both had been in Russian AF service for years but was not mentioned in public to even exist. Externally it looks like the SARH (Semi Active Radar Homing) R-27R and R-27ER missiles, but it uses passive radar homing to attack enemy aircraft, particularly those guiding SARH homing missiles themselves.

The point is that if the Russian Army want them then they will buy a huge number that will pay for development costs, of all the armies in the world... despite the existence of Javelin and Spike, the Russian army is probably the best defended against tanks, due to the range and quality of their anti tank weapons and their training.

A fire and forget version of Kornet will certainly improve their abilities, especially if they have to enlarge the missile to 210mm so it can use the Hermes seeker without modification. This will make the missile heavier, but the seeker in the Hermes has inertial guidance then terminal homing so it flys in a sort of autopilot towards the target and then acquires the target in flight and attacks it, which would mean a lofted flight trajectory and diving top attack options become available.

It might be that you elevate the Kornet launcher to 45 degrees and fire the missile at the target area and then point the sight at the target and then 5 seconds after launch you press a button to lase the target for tenth of a second which the missile detects and centres in its field of view in its IIR seeker and then attacks that target in a diving top attack flight profile. This means no datalink or fibre optic wire connection, no chance of the missile striking trees or low wires, once the target is marked the operator can up and leave the area and the IIR seeker should have no problem with hitting the target... if it moves then it is fairly easy to write a program to follow a moving target, most tanks these days have moving target auto trackers, most mid range Russian SAMs have had that feature for years too.

Note this is all my own opinion and not based on anything I have read from a Russian source.

AFAIK the only fire and forget Anti tank missiles the Russians are working on are either ground based unguided RPGs from reusable and disposable launchers and those fired from aircraft, that include the Kh-25, Kh-29, Kh-38, in TV and IR models, and the Hermes to replace the ATAKA and VIKHR missiles carried by Mil and Kamov helos respectively.It seems to me that so far the cost of fire and forget means that lots of standoff range is a benefit.Of course the real problem in fitting a nose mounted seeker in the Kornet is that that is where the small precursor charge to detonate ERA is located. Next you have the nose mounted control fins and then the sustainer rocket fuel and then the main charge warhead at a nice standoff distance so the plasma beam can form fully before it hits the main armour of the target and then in the tail is the rear facing laser seeker and the tail fins so adding a seeker in the nose will require a serious change in design.

It's a anti-tank missile. Kornet AT-14 is the version of the Tula KBP Kornet- E anti tank missile Design by Bureau. Famous newspaper of Russia Krasnaya Zvezda few weeks before his resignation in late september, Kormiltsev said that the new missiles can be equipped with a thermal or radio-locating homing head, nd could be used against enemy anti-tank missile syste. That's the speacility of this missile & that's why they said fire and forget.

* RPG-29 proved to be by far the most potent weapon among those used. As powerful as heavy ATGM Kornet, it appeared to assure the frontal penetration of T-80U even for the squad-level firepower. Even though T-90 fared better, it is still not immune to it. Considering sufficient proliferation of this weapon and the fact that this is still a fairly light infantry weapon, it is the most dangerous adversary of modern Russian MBTs, and is a very disturbing development. * Original reports that ATGM Kornet performance is severely degraded by ERA due to its peculiar order of internal components proved true as the ATGM with at least 100mm higher penetrating potential was not superior to a much lighter RPG-29. * Report of Shtora-1 EOCMDAS trials is confusing. Being laser-guided, ATGM Kornet should not suffer any interference from Shtora as it only affects IR SACLOS ATGMs. Furthermore, ATGMs can only deviate to the left if the marker is set to the left of both emitters, which is hardly likely. It is possible, however unlikely, that it was caused by a sloppy work of removal the warhead which e.g. could cause a gyro cofusion.

* Original reports that ATGM Kornet performance is severely degraded by ERA due to its peculiar order of internal components proved true as the ATGM with at least 100mm higher penetrating potential was not superior to a much lighter RPG-29.

There were initial problems with the internal arrangement of components with the KORNET which led to its performance revised from 1.2m down to 1m. Improvements have since resulted in a 1.2m claimed penetration performance under ERA so it seems they solved the problems... note these trials are now 10 years old.

ATGM Kornet should not suffer any interference from Shtora as it only affects IR SACLOS ATGMs. Furthermore, ATGMs can only deviate to the left if the marker is set to the left of both emitters, which is hardly likely.

Most wire guided SACLOS missiles like TOW and AT-5 and HOT and Milan and METIS etc have a small flare in the tail of the missile... or newer versions have IR lamps there, and while the operator guides the missile simply by keeping the crosshair on the target the launcher has two optical ports... one a sight for the user to keep his crosshair on the target, and the other a gionometer which detects the flare or IR light from the tail of the missile to determine where the missile actually is so that its position in relation to the aim point can be calculated and control signals can be sent down the wires to command the missile to manoeuvre into the line of sight so it flys down the crosshair line to hit the target.

The Kornet on the other hand is a laser beam rider, the launcher does not care where the missile is and has no gionometer to track it. The launcher has a coded laser beam of four colours and it is the missile that has a sensor looking back at the launcher that can see the laser beam. If the four colours are red, blue, green and yellow with say red in the top left, blue in the top right, green in the bottom left and yellow in the bottom right if the missile sees yellow it knows it is low and to the right so it manoeuvres itself up and to the left until it can see all four colours and then it knows it is in the centre of aim.

When Shtora is operating it appears to be intensely bright in the IR frequencies so for the wire guided missiles the gionometer is trying to see the IR signal of the missile in the huge beams of the Shtora and it is like trying to see a candle in front of a search light... if the launcher can't see the missile then it can't guide it to the target... it doesn't know what course corrections to send.

For the laser beam riding missile the missile is looking away from the target tank so Shtora can't interfere with its guidance... its only defence is smoke and by the time Kornet gets inside the smoke cloud it will be within about 200m of the target... so lets say it penetrates 50m into the smoke cloud before it loses sight of the laser beam it only has another 150m to the target... if the missile just carrys on straight it would have a fairly good chance of still hitting the target.

An important factor of course is that because the sensor looks directly at the laser rather than looking forward at a laser beam reflecting off the target the laser used is 4 orders of magnitude less powerful and is not effected by the colour or reflectivity of the target. (4 orders of magnitude is 10,000 times less powerful... which means the laser sensor might mistake it for the reflections of a laser pointed at something nearby or the tanks own laser being used to get a range on a target.)

Multipurpose missile complex Kornet -[EM]” they will for the first time show on max -2011Today, the 10:06

Multipurpose missile complex Kornet -[EM]” they will for the first time show on MAKS-2011.In August at the airshow MAKS-2011 GUP “the design bureau of instrument manufacture” ([KBP], Tula) will for the first time present the multipurpose high-precision missile complex of long range for dealing with the ground-based and aerial targets, with the automatic, completely noise-shielded laser-beam system for control Kornet -[EM]”.

New missile complex is capable to strike the contemporary and promising tanks, equipped with dynamic protection, the lightly armoured technology, fortifications, above-water and aerial targets ([UAV], helicopters, the aircraft of attack aviation).

Kornet -[EM]” has 8 rockets, ready to shooting, with the complete fire unit 16 pcs volley fire at two purposes considerably increases rate of fire and fire productivity. Complex makes it possible to conduct shooting all rockets of the family Kornet- E”.

The thing is that laser beam riding is not really fire and forget, though I suppose perhaps that might be yet to be revealed.

A flight range of 10km is impressive for such a missile and seems to be the main change.Other articles have mentioned new models of Kornet and Chrysantema with terminal homing heads with the latter having a flight range of 8km when launched from an Mi-28NM... perhaps this version of Kornet might offer it a run for its money, though MMW radar command guidance and laser beam riding as a combined guidance method would offer flexibility in the types of targets that could be engaged while keeping the unit price low enough to buy and more importantly use in enormous numbers. Having a cheap simple missile that hits its targets is ideal.

I suppose this means 1300 mm + ERA as ordinary Kornet have 1200 mm + ERA. I'm sure it have tandem warhead as all modern ATGMs.

Range of 10 km is quite a long distance for land based ATGM. They will have to improve its optics with higher magnification and TI to recognize and track targets on that distance or maybe they will connect this new Kornet with radar like Credo or similar to find targets and lock optics to target until missile hit it.

I rather suspect the Kornet-ER might be a slightly larger weapon than the original Kornet and it might be intended to be a vehicle only launched system.

As such I suspect EO sighting will be standard with modern thermal sights as standard.

The extended flight range will make retaliation more difficult and being a beam rider the launch platform can move during the engagement which is a huge advantage.

In fact a vehicle based system with a decent EO system should incorporate an auto tracker which in addition to being more precise than a human operator is also unaffected by nerves or tiredness and of course return fire induced fear.

In operational terms the system would be automatic with the operator placing the crosshair on the target and when the lock box appears around the target a press of a button will maintain that lock. Pressing the fire button when the target is in range would be all that remained for the operator to do.

I rather suspect the Kornet-ER might be a slightly larger weapon than the original Kornet and it might be intended to be a vehicle only launched system.

Agree. With that extended range and larger warhead it will be too heavy to be portable.

As such I suspect EO sighting will be standard with modern thermal sights as standard.

I agree that modern thermal sight must be standard part of FCS. But I'm not sure of optical sight will be standard here. Magnification of optical sight for Kornet is designed for 5,5 km range and 10 km is almost double range. Operator need larger zoom to see a tank in 10 km than in 5 km. It is useless to have a missile with 10 km range if you could not see target there. From outside maybe FCS block will look the same as standard one, but inside they will have to modify it, to operate against targets which are 10 km away.

The extended flight range will make retaliation more difficult and being a beam rider the launch platform can move during the engagement which is a huge advantage.

In fact a vehicle based system with a decent EO system should incorporate an auto tracker which in addition to being more precise than a human operator is also unaffected by nerves or tiredness and of course return fire induced fear.

In operational terms the system would be automatic with the operator placing the crosshair on the target and when the lock box appears around the target a press of a button will maintain that lock. Pressing the fire button when the target is in range would be all that remained for the operator to do.

I think in the same way. Placed it on mobile platform it will have more sense to integrate it with one of stabilized EO balls in FCS, which will enable fire on the move, have enough zoom to engage targets in 10 km and have autotracker to lock the target.

The photo with the article showed a light four wheeled vehicle with a hard top and a rack of 8 ready to fire missiles poking up in the rear. It looked like a Volk or Tigr-M.

I rather suspect this would be a light brigade example of the vehicle and in medium brigades there would be wheeled and tracked carriers that could replace Shturm on the MTLB chassis... the wheeled and tracked vehicles being Kangaroo and Kurganets-25 family vehicles. This suggests that in the heavy brigades there will be an Armata vehicle with Kornet ER missiles too.

This raises the question of where the Khrisantema fits within the ground forces... made by KBM, which also makes the Shturm and Ataka missiles for ground and air platforms.Is Kornet ER an attempt by KBP Tula to muscle in on KBMs territory?Certainly a 10km range supersonic Kornet with 1.4m penetration is clearly superior to Ataka and Shturm and Khrisantema missiles and it doesn't really make sense to use both Khrisantema and Kornet ER as vehicle based weapons. Having one standard weapon across vehicles and light aircraft would save money.The question remains is there a Khrisantema ER, or even is it time to merge KBM and KBP and develop a new joint ATGM?

We have heard rumours of the guided Kornet and the guided Khrisantema and also of a new ATGM called Baikal. I would expect that for the infantry the METIS M1 as a light weight relatively short range system with 2.5km range and 950mm armour penetration is adequate, and the 5.5km range Kornet with 1.2m penetration is also acceptable for widespread use. Having the Kornet ER as the vehicle based system might be good for ground forces commonality, but the MMW guidance component of the Khrisantema makes it all weather which is an advantage and in its helo launched version its range is 8km which is pretty close to Kornet-ER.

I wonder what class of ATGM the Baikal will be... will it be a fire and forget short range top attack system to suppliment Metis-M1 for very hard targets that Metis can't deal with(ie for bunkers and sniper positions Metis is cheap and simple and does the job and really doesn't need a very expensive fire and forget replacement).Or will Baikal be a larger system to replace Kornet with fire and forget capability and front or top attack options?

With the Hermes coming up soon I rather doubt Baikal will be a vehicle based system only like Krisantema and Kornet ER.

Then again there was talk of guided rockets for the RPG-32 which would compliment Metis as an even cheaper system that could be put in service in huge numbers.

I wonder if Kornet ATGM system placed in BMP-3 chassis will be also modified to use new 10 km range Kornet-ER missiles?

I suspect the Kornet ER on a BMP-3 chassis will be the direct competition with the Khrizantema ground based system. Both Kornet and Khrizantema can be guided with laser beam riding guidance, but Khrizantema has MMW radar command control guidance for complete all weather day/night use... and I suspect a 10+km range model wont be that hard to develop.

Will Russian army replace Metis ATGM with newer ATGM, which will not be wire guided?

Hard to say... the current model actually is selling quite well as it is cheap and portable and accurate and also quite powerful. My guess is don't fix what isn't broken.

Its purpose is portability and low cost, so one improvement might be more powerful warhead if that can be achieved without reducing range too much.

It's true, that Metis is still very good ATGM, which do its job well and is no need to replace it. Laser guidance only enable higher speed of missile, so it could have better option to penetrate active defense on armored vehicles comparing to slower wire guided missiles. Light laser guided ATGM would more cooperate with Metis against more danger targets, against other targets Metis is enough.